Depending on how you read into Wellington City Council’s decision to support NZTA’s suggested recommendations at their meeting last night, they either folded under NZTA’s pressure or simply reaffirmed their commitment to working with NZTA on a multi-modal corridor plan between the Ngauranga Gorge and Wellington Airport.
It is the mother of all U-turns from Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown, who not only voted for her council to support the Government’s $2.4 billion roading projects package but proposed the motion.
The retreat at last night’s extraordinary meeting of Wellington City Council ended weeks of speculation and confirmed the council’s support of the New Zealand Transport Agency’s roading plan.
Its proposal includes a possible flyover to the north of the Basin Reserve, duplicate Terrace and Mt Victoria tunnels, and four-laning Ruahine St and Wellington Rd.
Specific options for each project have yet to be released, but the council has now endorsed the agency’s overall plan.
Reading the council’s media release on the project suggests something a bit different though:
Wellington Mayor Celia Wade-Brown has welcomed tonight’s vote by the City Council confirming its support for the New Zealand Transport Agency’s Ngauranga to Wellington Airport Corridor Plan.
The Council tonight agreed to support the underlying premise that the transport issues within Wellington city can only be addressed by the implementation of a multi-modal package…
…The NZTA tonight issued a statement welcoming the Council’s support as “an important step towards progressing the multi-modal initiatives embraced in the plan.”
This term “multi-modal” seems to be the key point here. But what does it actually mean? The same term ended up being used in the study that’s meant to lead to a designation for rail to Auckland Airport: leading to the bizarre situation where nobody referred to the word “rail” in that project, even though everyone knows it’s about advancing the rail designation.
In my mind, multi-modal investigations are a pretty good idea. I tend to think that they involve looking at a corridor without any assumptions of what is the preferred option for improving transport, analysing current trends and demands, looking at environmental and engineering constraints, assessing different options based on what general transport goals there are in broad plans and strategies and then choosing your preferred way of improving transport. The outcome might be a mix of roading, public transport and walking/cycling improvements – or it might be some and not others. The point being that you assessed all the modal options without a preconceived idea of what the solution is, before coming up with your preferred option.
I’m not sure whether that’s what NZTA is meaning when it talks about multi-modal corridors – whether they’re talking about investigations or actually building one. I tend to think that it’s a very cynical phrase that NZTA uses to quell dissatisfaction with the public response to something that they’ve already decided upon the outcome – in Wellington’s case a four lane motorway (except in some areas that won’t be grade-separated) along the whole of this supposedly multi-modal corridor. They might throw in a half-hearted cycle lane here and there, plus a bus advance box somewhere along the route so that it has at least some benefit for public transport.
Generally though, I think use of the term ‘multi-modal corridor’ is another extremely cynical example of what I like to call “PT-wash” (or “transitwash”). It involves ploughing ahead with a large-scale roading project while spending around 1% of the budget on extremely insignificant benefits to public transport, walking and cycling. The Waterview Connection project is a classic example of this: NZTA continue to promote it as ‘enhancing modal choice’ – even though the only PT improvements they’ve created are pretty useless bus shoulder lanes (useless as the buses will keep on having to merge at each motorway ramp), plus NZTA continue to fight in every possible way to not have to provide a cycleway above the motorway tunnel.
So my advice would be to take an extremely cynical viewpoint whenever you hear the term “multi-modal”. Ask what that actually means, and to what extent the parties are really going into a multi-modal study with an open mind – or conversely whether the non-roading elements of the project are just another blatant example of PT-wash: designed to shut the public up with a few small scraps while ploughing ahead with massive roading projects.
Well I’m in Wellington for most of this week, at the New Zealand Planning Institute conference for the next three days and then staying on at the weekend to check out the city a bit. It should give me the opportunity to ride a suburban Wellington train on the weekend, which I haven’t ever done before (I wonder if I can try to catch one of the new Matangi trains).
It’s interesting to discuss with a few other planners some of the transport situation in Wellington, and in particular matters related to the Wellington Northern Corridor Road of National Significance. While I’ve certainly not been keen on a few of the Auckland based “RoNS” – in particular the Puhoi-Wellsford “holiday highway”, but the more I learn about the Wellington Northern Corridor RoNS the more I think that this is the worst of the lot. Let’s have a look at the map of the route: The route has many of the typical problems associated with many of Auckland’s RoNS: like the poor economics of parts of the route (such as Transmission Gully, which has a cost-benefit ratio of 0.6) and the huge amount of money that could be better spent on other projects. However, in addition to those problems there’s also the massive issue of the environmental effects of many of the parts of the RoNS – such as the “improvements” around the Basin Reserve and the effect of the motorway on local communities as it passes through the Kapiti Coast.
Obviously many similar issues have been raised with the Waterview Connection project, and it would seem as though the Board of Inquiry for that project seeming to still have a number of big problems – and it will be interesting to see whether they’re willing to grant it consent. However, the Waterview project is still largely in a tunnel, which means that its effects are vastly less than they would otherwise have been. The same for the Victoria Park Tunnel – another Auckland based RoNS.
It seems, from what is admittedly a rather brief look, that Wellington is getting a a pretty raw deal with the urban effects of this particular road. The mitigation details might be further expanded upon compared to what I currently know, but at the moment it sounds pretty horrible. This reinforces my general feeling that there’s simply no room to build more motorways through our urban areas anymore, that we need to use our existing transport infrastructure more effectively and efficiently – rather than spending vast sums of money on more urban motorways, and in the process destroying the value of our urban areas. It will be interesting to see whether Wellington accepts the impact of this road on the city’s urban structure.
When thinking about the Western Ring Route the most common thought is about completing the Waterview Connection however there is also another bit part of overall project and that is widening SH16 from St Lukes all the way through to Westgate. The image below shows the planned number of lanes for this entire section.
The works from Te Atatu to St Lukes are included as part of the Waterview Connection but the other parts aren’t and recently the NZTA started construction on the Lincoln Road interchange. I think most people that have used it would probably agree that Lincoln Rd has to be one of the worst interchanges on the Auckland motorway network. The on and off ramps are generally quite tight an curvy with little space to merge, the overbridge is narrow and you would have to be pretty brave to try getting across on foot.
So here is what the NZTA have said about it.
$100 million seems like a hell of a lot of money for one interchange and a small stretch of motorway on each side. So what are we going to get for that $100 million? The most promenant thing is that they are going to widen the bridge from 2 lanes to 7. The bridge is almost exclusively for access to and from the motorway and most of that is to get to the citybound onramp so why on earth does it need 7 lanes and what are they going to do with them all?
Of the other things we will get, more bus shoulders are better than what we have now but it seems like such a wasted opportunity not to have put a proper busway in as it serves a completely different catchment to the western rail line. They will realign the ramps and probably the best thing of the project is the cycleway will be extended a further 2km. So what is the interchange going to look like and what are all those lanes for? The NZTA don’t seem to have anything in the way of maps or diagrams online but I have managed to find the NOR documents that were filed with the old Waitakere City Council. There are quite a few maps as the project actually extends from just east of the Henderson Creek to Huruhuru Rd but here is the one for the interchange itself.
So we can see that there will be three lanes heading north towards the citybound onramp and one of those is a bus /HOV lane which seems reasonable, the transport assessment indicates that there won’t be huge numbers of buses even at peak time so this should be ok. We can also see that the 4 lanes that make up the rest of the bridge are all Southbound which seems completely overkill, even though one is a turning lane. You can also see some quite big changes to 3 of the 4 ramps, removing the tight corners that currently exist.
You can also see they have highlighted all of the footpaths/cycleways in yellow which makes them much easier to see. This is definitely a lot more than there are now however I can see one big issue with this, for someone travelling along the cycleway they will have to cross 4 sets of traffic lights just to be able to carry on their journey. How much more expensive would it have been to put a bridge in while they were doing all of these works, by doing it at the same time it and being for pedestrians/cyclists only it surely wouldn’t cost that much. A bridge also wouldn’t look that out of place as the area is light industrial and the nearest houses are 150-200m away. If a bridge was to much, what about a simple underpass? again if done at the same time it shouldn’t end up costing that much more. To me it just seems like the NZTA put it in the to hard basket which is a real shame as the NW cycleway is probably the best infrastructure of its kind in the city and many of the other onramps or major roads have been bridged over to allow a continuous journey.
Lastly you can also see the existing red dotted line marking the existing motorway boundary. With the realigned ramps, particularly the Eastbound ones, I wonder if the NZTA have considered selling off the excess land after they finish as there seems like there will be quite a bit available which could be redeveloped.
One welcome improvement to the way NZTA builds motorways over the past few years is the addition of sound barriers. I’ve spent quite a while wandering around Greenlane (delivering leaflets about the Project Greenlane upgrade a few years back) and one thing you really notice when you’re walking near houses located close to the southern motorway is just how damn noisy it is. While unfortunately it’s probably a while until we’ll see NZTA retrofitting existing motorways with sound-barriers – at least with new motorways and widened motorways we’re finally seeing some sympathy given to those who live close to these noisy beasts.
However, sound-barriers come with their own disadvantages too. They’re often pretty ugly, and if you have walking/cycling paths next to the motorway you end up in the tricky situation of deciding which side of the path to put the sound-barriers. If you put the cycleway next to the motorway and then have the sound-barriers you decrease their effectiveness at blocking noise (as they work better the closer they are to the source of the noise). But on the other hand, if you put the barrier next to the motorway and hide the cycleway/footpath behind it, that becomes a pretty dangerous place to be – hidden from the ‘passive surveillance’ of vehicles passing by. Fortunately, in the case of the Victoria Park Tunnel project (which also includes motorway widening through St Mary’s Bay), NZTA came up with the “win-win” outcome – make the barriers see-through. This also reduces their physical appearance and potential domination of the area.
Here’s a news story on the matter, as the first transparent sound barriers are starting to go up
Some of the more expensive house in Auckland can now boast the country’s most expensive sound barrier to reduce traffic noise.
Houses on St Mary’s Bay with views over the Westhaven Marina and Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour, sit above the northern motorway, taking up to 160,000 vehicles a day on their journey to and from the Auckland Harbour Bridge.
The New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) is adding two new lanes, one north and one south, to the motorway as part of the $340 million project to improve traffic flows. The project includes a tunnel under Victoria Park.
It has also started putting up the country’s first acrylic, see-through sound barriers to reduce noise and protect “the iconic view from the motorway to the pohutukawa clad St Marys Bay cliffs”.
The 500 acrylic panels, up to 5m high, and their concrete foundations, will cost $3.5m.
The panels have black strips built in to stop birds flying into them and a light transmission of more than 90 percent. The acrylic was superior to comparable sheets of glass, resistant to weathering and 11 times more break-resistant than window glass of the same thickness, said NZTA.
As each panel was installed it had an anti graffiti film applied.
NZTA state highway manager for Auckland and Northland, Tommy Parker, said the sound barriers were part of a new move to make urban road design more interesting and reduce noise where motorways were near housing.
He said the barriers were very effective at deflecting road noise up past the houses high on the cliff behind the barriers. The see-through barriers were unique because of the views but it would also mean the St Mary’s Bay reserve and other public areas would not become “dungeons” which would happen if solid sound barriers were erected.
So Mr Parker’s worried about the public areas becoming “dungeons” if solid barriers were erected. Fair point.
But upon reading that article I immediately thought about the Waterview Connection project, which has been working its way through a hearing this week. In fact, this very matter was discussed in the cross-examination of the Waterview project’s lead engineer, Andre Walters. We can read the questions and answers, thanks to the EPA very kindly posting the transcript from the whole hearing online:
Q. Just to turn to a slightly different issue and thinking about noise barriers. Noise barriers I understand can come in different forms? A. That’s correct.
Q. They can be concrete or even transparent I understand, is that correct? A. That’s correct
Q. Have you explored the possibility of transparent noise barriers for this project? A. Yes we have and experience around the world has shown that generally they are not a good idea, they do require a high level of maintenance to be able to maintain that transparency and unfortunately society today they are open for tagging, being shot at, rocks being thrown at and they are very high maintenance.
Q. Are you familiar with the Victoria Park Tunnel Project? A. I have some knowledge, very limited but I do have some knowledge.
Q. Are you aware that in relation to the St Marys Bay community, there are noise, transparent noise barriers and the proposal to erect a pedestrian link there? A. I have heard that but I don’t have any particular details on that.
Q. Assuming that were to be the case, besides this community that is affected by this project, being a lower socio-economic community, are you aware of any additional reasons why that might be considered in that project and not in this project? A. From an engineering and operational point of view I’ve highlighted what I see as being the operational problems from an engineering perspective, completely, totally feasible and I would rely on the other experts, particularly Mr Dave Little to give his expert opinion in terms of what the landscape and the visual effects of that would be.
Transparent noise barriers through Allan Wood Reserve in Owairaka would be really useful actually, as NZTA are driving a motorway through the middle of a park and it will have massive effects on people who use – and live around – that park.
But I guess it’s OK to create public area “dungeons” in Owairaka because it’s a poorer suburb than St Mary’s Bay?
After years of background work, arguments, designs, redesigns, re-redesigns and so forth, the Waterview Connection project will have its official planning hearing from Monday onwards. The hearing is likely to be quite lengthy, with NZTA putting forward a vast array of witnesses, Auckland Council doing similar, and a relatively large number of submitters also being very interested parties. Despite the lengthy lead-in period, because this project is being ‘fast-tracked’ through the government’s new planning structure – and has been sent to a Board of Inquiry – things have actually moved really quickly in the last few months. I would imagine that quite a few NZTA staff and their consultants would have been doing little else but this project in order to get everything ready. There’s certainly a mountain of paperwork!
The latest mountain of paperwork to arrive is what’s known as NZTA’s “Rebuttal Evidence”. Back in November last year NZTA lodged their “evidence in chief”: which is the primary justification for the project by NZTA and the analysis by their consultants about what the environmental effects of the project are and how they will be avoided, remedied or mitigated. You can read all of NZTA’s evidence here (both evidence in chief and rebuttal evidence). After NZTA had lodged their evidence, submitters who wanted to be involved at the hearing had the opportunity to lodge evidence themselves – and many did so. Out of the submitters’ evidence, three that I found particularly worth reading were what Auckland Council had to say about transport matters, what Auckland University economics professor Tim Hazeldine had to say about the project’s economic justification and what the principal of Waterview Primary School had to say about concerns relating to effects on the school.
NZTA have had the opportunity to respond to matters raised by the submitters, and their rebuttal evidence does just that. Perhaps the most useful rebuttal evidence to look at is that of State Highways Manager Tommy Parker: as he effectively summarises what many of the other expert witnesses have said in their rebuttal evidence – and he presents the “NZTA case” as it now stands. Mr Parker comments on a few interesting matters, including the following:
Whether the project meets its stated objectives
Whether a cycleway needs to be constructed along the alignment of the tunnel section
Whether congestion charging would offset the need for the project
Whether the project’s economic assessment is robust
Whether a bus lane should be provided along Great North Road
Whether the ventilation buildings/stacks (either one or both of them) should be undergrounded
Effects on the school and kindergarten
The first useful bunch of these issues to discuss is the question of whether the project is justified. This encompasses issues over whether it will meet its objectives, whether congestion charging could alleviate the need for the project and whether the economic assessment of the project is robust. These questions were also raised in the Campaign for Better Transport’s submission on the Waterview Connection (although unfortunately the CBT could not afford to hire traffic engineers and economics experts to argue their case further).
Of course Mr Parker disagrees with submissions saying that the project does not meet its objectives: It’s amusing to see the cyclical nature of much of what’s said here – and how it actually avoids the real questions. The first objective is fairly obvious – yes the project contributes to the region’s transport infrastructure and yes it will link up SH20 with SH16. It will improve the resilience of SH16 by raising the causeway and therefore reducing the flooding. It will also increase the capacity of the road – whether that should equate to improving the capacity of the road should probably be left to others to determine.
The second objective of the project is the one that I’ve always felt hasn’t been well supported at all by the documentation. How does the project help support economic growth and productivity? Where’s the study? Where are the figures? What if the money was put into different projects – would they generate greater productivity gains? While the Waterview Connection has a more robust business case than most of the other RoNS: it just seems like a giant omission to not include much at all about how the project actually achieves all these supposed economic benefits. Maybe I need to read the economics rebuttal evidence in some detail – it might be in there.
The other objective the project has is to support modal choice and mobility in the Auckland region – by improving public transport, walking and cycling. I’ve always thought the project only really makes token gestures when it comes to public transport: and we’d be much better off constructing a Northwest Busway than widening SH16 to nine lanes. Here’s what Mr Parker says to those who criticise the project’s lack of public transport, walking and (particularly) cycling infrastructure:
So it’s clear that NZTA are not going to build a connecting cycleway above the tunnel section of the motorway. Instead they’re going to request Auckland Transport do it and offer some funding assistance. The problem is that NZTA’s pot of money for cycling is incredibly small and this cycleway would have to complete against all the other great cycleway projects not being built – instead of being able to get a little bit of money out of the absolutely giant state highways funding budget. Oh how I wish transport projects of all kinds had equal access to funding!
Moving along a bit, in response to questions raised about the project’s economic justification, Mr Parker reveals that the cost-benefit ratio of the project has decreased dramatically in recent months since a new traffic model was used: Oh wow this raises so many interesting questions. What’s the difference between the ART2 and ART3 models? How on earth can one model generate traffic benefits vastly bigger than the other? Were petrol prices factored into ART3 more than ART2, causing the big difference? If ART3 is a more up-to-date model, then shouldn’t that be peer reviewed and finalised before we go and spent close to $2 billion of public money on this project?
What he also says about how NZTA prioritises projects also makes for interesting reading: Apart from the obvious typo, it is revealing to see the kind of words that NZTA uses to justify its projects – potentially those that don’t actually make economic sense. I can foresee this whole process potentially happening in a few years time for the Puhoi-Wellsford motorway: with NZTA justifying the project because it gives effect to the GPS despite it having an absolutely pathetic cost-benefit ratio.
Amongst all the gloom there is one usefully good piece of news – and that relates to a potential Great North Road bus lane through Waterview, a lane that is desperately needed to reduce the huge delays faced by bus passengers along this stretch of road in the morning peak: It will be useful to follow the extent to which we end up with a bus lane along Great North Road.
Another disappointment though is NZTA’s response to requests for the ventilation buildings to be undergrounded – with Mr Parker’s response setting up an interesting question for the Board of Inquiry: can NZTA get away with doing something that creates pretty massive environmental effects just because it’s expensive to mitigate those effects? Remember that the project cost is around $2 billion: so $20 million is only 1% of the project. I’m not quite sure whether the “it’s too expensive” will ‘cut the mustard’ with the board of inquiry: that will be something interesting to follow in the hearing and in the final decision the board makes.
I’ll have a good read through more of the rebuttal evidence over the next few days and see if there’s other interesting stuff. Having a good read through the economics, transport and visual effects rebuttal evidence might be particularly revealing.
Most transport projects, particularly when it comes to widening motorways or building new ones, derive the vast majority of their estimated ‘benefits’ from the travel time that they will supposedly generate. These “time savings benefits” form the core of most transport cost-benefit analyses that are undertaken – even for public transport projects, where it would seem the biggest apparent benefits of investing money in public transport is to free up traffic movement on the roads.
For example, if we look at the cost-benefit analysis undertaken for the Waterview Connection project (a previous iteration of it, but the benefits will be exactly the same) – there’s a huge amount of estimated ‘time savings benefits’:
Time savings benefits are calculated by working out the amount of time a project would save a particular user, then multiplying that up by the number of users who will benefit. Then a ‘dollar value’ is put on each hour saved (I forget the exact amount). Then you multiply that up by 30 years, apply a discount ratio and voila, you have a big amount of monetary benefit that your project will supposedly create, and therefore it’s justifiable to spend, in the case of the Waterview Connection, almost $2 billion on the project and the associated SH16 widening.
But does that work? Does that really make sense? I know the good old saying that ‘time is money’, but does that apply to all trips? Is there really a monetary benefit to the economy from me being able to get to my friend’s house a few minutes faster on a Sunday afternoon? Is there a benefit to the economy of me being able to get out of bed 10 minutes later that would otherwise be the case, but still get to work on time (if I used this route to get to work).
I can certainly see a monetary benefit in business trips being able to be made quicker and also from it being quicker to shift goods around. But what percentage of trips are actually business trips – as opposed to commuting trips, leisure trips or just general ‘errands’ trips. According to a study done by the ARC back in 2009, in 2041 only a relatively small percentage of trips are business or freight trips – with the biggest number actually being simple ‘errands’ trips. The proportion is fairly similar to what we have today (though future proportions are more important as we build new projects for the future).
But is there really a big benefit to the economy of being able to get your kid to school quicker, or being able to get to the supermarket for shopping a few minutes faster than before?
Certainly, there’s likely to be a ‘quality of life’ improvement that comes from spending less of your life getting from A to B. I’m going to be reluctant in moving from where I live now, because I’m able to get out of bed at 7.45am in the morning and still make it to work on time. There’s a quality of life benefit for me in that sense. Similarly, there’s a quality of life benefit in making many other commuting, or errands, or leisure trips a bit quicker. Nobody really ‘likes’ spending time in traffic congestion: it’s frustrating, it feels like a waste of time and so forth. But does it really adversely affect the economy to the extent that we see numbers like “congestion costs Auckland a billion dollar a year!” being floated around? I must say I’m a bit sceptical – particularly when it’s actually damn near impossible to completely eliminate congestion (so what does the billion dollars actually compare against?)
For many households in Auckland, there’s something else annoying that they have to spend much of their life doing – something which probably has a reasonably significant adverse effect on their quality of life actually. And that is doing the dishes. Fortunately, I live in a house with a dishwasher, and therefore don’t need to waste 20 minutes a day (or as it tended to be, two hours once a week!) on doing the dishes. Not having to do that improves my quality of life quite a lot. I can play around on the computer a bit longer in the evenings, I feel less stressed about life as I don’t have a “I must do the dishes” feeling eating away at the back of my mind and so forth.
So we can readily accept that if all households in Auckland had a dishwasher, the people in those households would have a lot more free time, a lot less stress and so forth. In fact, they would benefit in many of the same ways (and perhaps to an even greater extent) as what transport projects like the Waterview Connection will supposedly provide. Plus, if we estimate that there are around 700,000 households in the Auckland region, that say 40% already have dishwashers and that a new dishwasher costs around $1200, we could buy every remaining household in Auckland a dishwasher for a grand total of just over $500 million. That’s around a quarter of the price of the Waterview Connection!
This may sound like a bit of a silly proposition – to compare the need for transport projects with the need for dishwashers – but it raises a very valid point: what real value are we getting for our transport spend, and what better ways might there be of achieving the same benefits? Perhaps we should subject transport projects to a simple “why not just buy a dishwasher test”? Projects that make good sense, like the CBD Rail Tunnel, clearly pass that test as they are all about encouraging economic agglomeration benefits, improving productivity, generating higher wages and so forth. That may also be true – to some extent – for projects like the Waterview Connection.
If it is true, then why aren’t we measuring that? Why aren’t we measuring the real benefits for the economy instead of time savings benefits, something that could be more cheaply and easily achieved by simply buying households dishwashers?
I was having a read through a number of submissions on the Waterview Connection project today and came along a very interesting submission by Auckland University Associate Professor of Economics, Rema Vaithianathan, that is worthy of sharing. The useful thing that Rema’s submission does is include an article she wrote for the Road & Transport Research Journal back in September last year on the economics of urban motorways – with the Waterview Connection as a case study. You can easily access the journal article part of her submission by clicking here.
While the article is slightly out of date, in that NZTA quite radically changed its design in December last year, the points about transport economics in general still hold true.
She discusses time savings benefits, a decidedly dodgy tool that is used to estimate the benefits a particular transport project will provide: I’ve discussed the work of David Metz in previous blog posts – and it certainly is interesting that over decades so much money can be spent on transport projects that promised to provide such huge time savings benefits – with the real result actually being no reduction in travel times, just a lengthening of trips.
I also think it’s great that Rema points out that the economic value of time savings (should they even exist in the long run) varies according to the type of trip being made. For commuting trips, really the only benefit you get from a shorter commute is being able to sleep in longer and getting home from work a bit earlier in the evening. Sure those are quality of life improvements, but are they really an economic gain? Surely if we were really interested in improving quality of life by giving people more spare time we’d instead spend money on buying every household in the country a dishwasher. Heck, it’d be cheaper than many of the motorway projects currently proposed!
Rema’s article also goes on to discuss the social costs that are generally not considered in undertaking cost-benefit analyses: While like most people I certainly appreciate the fact that motorway projects can have significant social and environmental effects, it’s interesting to see what happens when you start trying to apply a dollar figure to those effects. I can see how Boston benefitted hugely from removing an elevated freeway from through the heart of its city – largely from increased property values around the area I imagine – so it’s interesting to think how that same process would work in reverse. How many houses have their value significantly decreased because they’re next to a noisy, ugly and polluting motorway? What is the social cost of losing nearby open space? And so forth.
I like Rema’s conclusion as well: While I do care about the results of cost-benefit analyses, I think it’s useful to take their results with a bit of a grain of salt – because of the costs they ignore and the benefits they potentially invent. Perhaps what is particularly amusing is that a project like Puhoi-Wellsford still can’t score well in a cost-benefit analysis – even though the system is so exceedingly skewed in favour of justifying it.
A week or so ago the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) notified NZTA’s application for consent to build the Waterview Connection and to widen State Highway 16. Submissions are now open until October 15th. It’s possible to download a submission form here, and then email it to both waterview@epa.govt.nz and waterview.connection@nzta.govt.nz. There are effectively two parts to the project: the Waterview Connection, which links the Mt Roskill end of State Highway 20 with the existing Northwest Motorway (SH16) and also a significant widening of State Highway 16. All up the two projects will cost around $2 billion – by far New Zealand’s largest ever transport project. Here’s an aerial photo of where significant parts of the project will be located: The documentation that has been prepared by NZTA is pretty massive, and really needs some breaking down in order to make sense out of it. We have:
A general overview of the proposal – including all the application forms. This is a pretty boring section that isn’t really worth reading.
The various assessments of effects. A lot of this is either quite technical, or a summary of the various specialist reports that I will mention later.
The specialist reports. Here is where the real grunt work behind the application lies, with a large number of specialist reports being prepared. Perhaps of most interest to readers of this blog will be the transport assessment and the traffic modelling information.
I have blogged extensively on both the Waterview Connection and the SH16 widening in the past – and I’m pretty familiar with the project due to the various iterations it went through last year. One particularly interesting aspect of the documentation is the transport assessment, and how it addresses what is my main remaining issue with the project – and that is whether widening State Highway 16 is a complete waste of money because it will just “induce” traffic and quickly become congested again (just like what has happened with every other motorway widening project in the history of Auckland).
While the transport assessment is over 180 pages long and requires some serious effort to read through (something I certainly haven’t done in any detail). It has a very useful summary of the findings – in particular on the matter relating to whether widening SH16 will actually have long term benefits or not. To start with, it is worth noting the transport benefits the project will almost certainly have – particularly on the local road network that through-traffic will now be able to avoid: In order to realise many of the benefits to Great North Road, Carrington Road and Mt Albert Road it will be necessary to reallocate some of the road space to more “people friendly” uses – such as bus lanes, footpaths, cycleways and so forth. It will be interesting to see whether this happens or not, as both NZTA and Auckland City Council seem to have been pointing fingers at each other saying “your problem” over these matters for the last couple of years.
Getting on to the traffic effects on the actual motorways themselves, it’s a little bit wordy – but well worth having a dig through: In short, we see the motorway widening inducing an additional 25-35% of peak hour traffic by 2026 than was the case in 2006 (I do wonder what the “do nothing” for 2026 is – might have to have a dig through the documentation). That’s a quite significant amount of extra traffic that will need to get to and from the motorway along arterial roads that are generally around capacity at the moment. Looking at the peak hour eastbound direction (AM peak), it seems that there will be a slight improvement in travel times compared to the 2006 baseline. But for the peak hour westbound direction (PM peak), traffic in 2026 will actually be more congested than it is now – even though much of the westbound motorway will be widened from three lanes to five lanes. It seems that NZTA have finally acknowledged that widening motorways does not fix congestion. (Actually perhaps not, they’re still proceeding with the project).
The cost of the SH16 upgrade is not insignificant. When the whole Westgate to Western Springs widening is added up, an NZ Herald article from last year suggested that the cost would be $860 million. That seems an awfully huge amount of money to spend on a project that seems like it won’t actually make things much better at all.
The public transport benefits of the project are talked up a bit in the section below – and sure there will be some benefit from the longer bus shoulder lanes. But it’s pretty marginal compared with the project as a whole – perhaps a million or two out of the $2 billion budget. I look forward to seeing how the public submission process, and the eventual Board of Inquiry hearing proceeds. It feels like it has been so long in the “preliminary” stages of this project that it’s quite hard to believe we’re actually now right in the middle of the actual submissions process.
In general, I find myself probably supporting the SH20 section on balance – as it should take significant pressure of SH1, should take traffic away from local streets (as long as we reallocate road space to ensure the streets don’t fill themselves up again) and will “complete the motorway network”. However, with the SH16 section, while I can understand one additional westbound lane (to avoid a merging nightmare between SH20 and SH16), the massive widening of the motorway seems completely pointless – as NZTA’s own traffic analysis shows that it will make little or no difference to congestion in the longer-run. Surely a big chunk of that $860 million could be spent more usefully elsewhere?
NZTA have made a pretty well put together animation of what the Western Ring Route upgrade will look like when completed, which includes the $1.4 billion Waterview Connection.
A few thoughts come to mind:
There’s certainly not going to be much left of Allan Wood Reserve once the motorway goes through it (this is largely shown in the first minute).
The interchange between SH20 and SH16 at Waterview will be completely massive.
SH16 looks incredibly wide (not surprising as it’s going to be nine lanes wide for some of its length.)
An NZ Herald article notes that the Mangere Bridge was formally opened earlier today, by the Minister of Transport. Here’s an extract:
Motorists in Auckland are set to benefit from reduced journey times to and from the airport after the new duplicate Mangere Bridge across Manukau Harbour was officially opened today.
The New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) and the Manukau Harbour Crossing Alliance completed construction of the 650 metre-long bridge seven months ahead of schedule.
People were given the chance to walk and cycle the new bridge today before it opens to motorway traffic.
The $230 million project, together with the existing bridge which opened in 1983, increases capacity on the Southwestern Motorway (State Highway 20) to 10 lanes across the Manukau Harbour – with eight lanes for general traffic on the bridges and two shoulder lanes for buses.
Ah well at least the bus lanes mean there might be some benefit for public transport users.
The benefits of the project were trumpeted by NZTA Chief Executive Geoff Dangerfield:
The duplicate bridge is on one of the country’s most important routes, NZTA chief executive Geoff Dangerfield said.
“The additional traffic and bus lanes will reduce congestion, and shorten travel times for commuters, visitors and exporters who depend on travel reliability to get to the airport.
“Time savings of up to 20 minutes are expected for journeys between the CBD and the airport at peak,” he said.
The duplicate bridge has a fourth southbound lane dedicated to local traffic between the communities of Onehunga and Mangere Bridge. The existing bridge beside it will be refurbished to carry four northbound lanes.
I’ve underlined what I think is the most important bit here. NZTA reckon there will be a 20 minute benefit for people travelling between the CBD and the Airport at peak times just because the motorway has been widened by a few lanes? Crikey, if the benefits are that great then one wonders why we’re even bothering with the Waterview Connection. That project is being justified on the basis that it’ll save people 15 minutes off a trip between the Airport and the CBD. Any more motorway projects to speed up this trip and driving sounds like it’ll be about as fast as teleporting from the city out to the airport.
But being serious here, this “20 minute savings claim” make me think very much of a post I did a few weeks back questioning the veracity of these “time savings benefits”. I’ll re-post my concluding paragraph:
What I think we need to measure is the ability of a project to “increase the number of people within “x” minutes of “y” location” (ie. measure the number of people whose accessibility has been enhanced), rather than hope that a particular project will save a certain number of minutes off travel time, and then measure those minutes. We must take into account induced demand: both in terms of triple-convergence, but also in terms of longer-term changes such as whether the project is inducing people to travel further, or whether it’s encouraging land-use patterns that will eat away at the project’s benefits over time. I think it is only then that we’ll be able to truly measure the benefits of our transport investment accurately, and I think such a change could throw up some interesting results.
There may well be an advantage of having a greater number of people within a 30 minute drive of the airport, for example, as a result of this project. But if that’s the case then that’s what we should and must measure. It won’t sound quite as “sexy” as a claim that “this project will save you 20 minutes off a peak time trip”, but it will actually be true.
I fully expect that within a few years the Mangere Bridge will become just as congested as it is now with four lanes. Mark my words, motorway widening has never fixed congestion before so I don’t see any reason why it would start fixing congestion now.
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